Zvezda French Voltigeurs

Oops! Okay, before you all start commenting, I noticed after I posted these that I got a smidge of red on the flugelhorn (or loop-de-loop horn or whatever its called) while repainting the plume from green to red. Yeah, that's on oops on top of an oops.

The red's bugging you now, isn't it?

Not sure if I'm a fan of the macro lens. It shows that my painting can be pretty slap-dash at times.

So this is what my 'kleine Prussische soldaten' see coming out of the woods on their right flank!

Hey, where's the Lithuanian Dragoons I painted a while back! 

Painted the first figure about a year ago, finished up the rest just a up couple days ago. These are painted as Light Voltigeurs (Vaulters, heard they were intended to be ridden into battle in wagons alongside the cavalry, leaping over the sides like the famous photos of Germans hopping out of Hanomags. Napoleon was quite the visionary! 

If I get around to it, I'll do up a set as Line Voltigeurs (white pants.) I think these same figures can be painted as grenadiers—white pants, red plumes and epaulets. Considering Zvezda's scale-creep, they may be better served as the taller grenadiers.

These are basically painted to the box art. A whole box of them painted up would be a stunning display. Unfortunately, the average life span isn't long to accommodate painting a box of Voltigeurs. Or at least, not at the pace I plod through them. Not only that, but it looks like I have Bavarians to get started on.

Enjoy.

ESCI U.S. Special Forces—Viet Nam

The scene here is a classic firefight as a patrol moves up a road toward a firebase. The running figure and man firing the grenade launcher are probably my two favorite ESCI poses, ever. The 'Rambo' character is probably my least ESCI favorite. Ever. I'm not a fan of soldiers without headgear. Unless wounded.

A view from the other side. Here is a fig without headgear, but he's wounded. 

A classic ESCI pose but this is one of the best realizations of it. 

Hard to see but these figs are painted as 1st Cavalry.

A view from the chopper.

As I'm going through and painting poses in my collection that have never been painted—I'm no expert nor really interested in Viet Nam, why I even acquired these I have now idea—I realized I have a ton of ESCI! I think I bought almost everything they had except Ancients just because they were all that was new at the time. I was never a true fan like I was with Airfix but they are easy to paint and to ESCI's credit, their troops put on a good show. 

The palm tree is from Pegasus and is a nice, convincing kit. The tall grass is fake fur, cut short and scrubbed with Testor Interior Green. I quit working in oils but that's the only paint that'll adhere to fake fur.

Emhar World War 1 British

Poor commander's a goner poking his head up like that.

Note the HaT Australian in the tin hat. He's making his second appearance.

I made one wire holder for the barbed wire—just in front of the Australian. It was a fiddly affair attempting the pigtail curl with two pliers. One's enough!

Two shots of basically the same view. Note another HaT Australian in the center.

Some of the figures — officer with map and gunner with the Vickers were painted years ago. I hadn't upgraded them yet and hence the lack of a good view of the Vickers. I spent more time putting together the base—vowed I wouldn't spend time on the display, just the figures, but WW1 figures demand a trench and I wouldn't allow myself to do a slapdash job on the trench. Of course, I still need to make duckboards and have a few Airfix figures I want to sprinkle in for good effect. 

Between this and the Falklands post, I'm spending more time on the base. I still have WW1 French and Germans to go. Looks like I'm going to be spending a lot of time making trenches!

Matchbox NATO Paratroopers

Not quite the most accurate portrayal of the famous photo but considering the rarity of these figures and those remaining (the mortars are lost as are some others) I'm afraid to convert the radio man to a proper yomping pose. 

The men are painted in a mix of airborne (red berets) and Royal Marines (green berets.) I believe the Union Jack in the famous photo was affixed to the antennae after news of the Argentine surrender, so it's anachronistic to have the troops still fighting, but it's makes for a good show.

These are the best figures Matchbox produced, the faces perfect, the poses very natural. British camo is hard to paint, okay, I find all camo hard to paint. It has an arcing sweep pattern that's hand to achieve over folds and webbing. There's a few ESCI NATO British troops thrown in to fill these out.

This is also my first attempt at snow. Being the cheapskate, I tried powdered laundry detergent. (Bad idea) the drywall mix (too gray) powered sugar (ate it instead) and finally, settled on baking soda. I think it would be easier to do a full on Russian front snow. I don't know. Trying to mimic the wind-swept dustings and melted snow of the Falkland was hard. You never feel like it looks right. Kind of like camo pattern. You just work it till you're tired of it. I had to scrape the base a couple times and start over.

The rocks are chuncks of pink foam insulation covered with a thin coat of drywall mud then washed in layers of diluted black paint. I'm pleased with they way they turned out, while I was making them I kept thinking "I'm hack! Pink foam and baking powder!"

Prussian Dragoons at Möckern

Inspired by the Knötel print of Lithuanian dragoons charging French Marines at the near Möckern during the battle of Leipzig.

The inspiration. One day I'll kitbash a windmill. The French officer could be made from the Peninsular War British officer (if I ever obtain another.) Good luck finding figure for Yorck.

French marines are a paint conversion of HäT's Napoleonic Brunswick Lieb infantry. Too many straps, I know. Hussar style coats are a bear to paint! The Prussian Dragoons are, well, HäT's Prussian Dragoons (set #8002). Not the bicornes (set #8196.)

HäT World War 2 German Tank Riders

Again, nice figures from HäT! Test shot of German tank riders. Painted early war. On a late war tank.

I expect flamers in the comments section. Cheers!

HäT World War One French Cavalry

Test shots of HäT's new World War One French Cavalry. The WW1 sprues come with 5 riders and horses—officer and four mounted infantry (shown.) The horses, saddles and bedrolls are the same for all nations—British, French and Turkish. As with recent figures, these have great raised detail. Most all of the webbing, straps, ammo pouches are concise and easily identified when painting. The arms holding the lances/rifles/sword are separate, allowing a variety of positions. In this case, I chose the lances upright.

The scene is August, 1918 as French forces move forward. An Australian soldier (with helmet added) escorts German prisoners and a wounded French poilu to the rear. 

One of the prisoners is the surrendering Airfix German with Stalhelm and arms at his side (taken from the tankers in Emhar's WW1 British kit. I think he looks a little weird.

Revell Thirty Years War infantry

This took me about thirty months to paint.
As a diversion from Naps, I thought I'd snack on another era. This practically choked me instead. After some research on uniforms it quickly turned into a mess—mercenaries, laces, breeches, knee socks, feathers, sleeves, all depending on princes, lords, municipalities, religious affiliation. Throw in that most soldiers wore their civilian clothes and well, good grief! After painting a handful I stopped and spent more time deliberating, researching, untangling and getting discouraged. To TYW enthusiasts, I'm sure these are horrifically inaccurate.

In the end, I chucked at all and painted them according to Revell's box art. I like the end result but I doubt I'll ever dabble in the TYW again.
Unless I find the Imperial Artillery. For a decent price.

Happy new year!

HäT Tank Riders — British

Here's the first of four tank rider sets from HäT.

First of all, these tank riders are not just for tanks. Seated figures are very useful to fill up and give life to half-tracks, jeeps, lorries, armoured cars, sitting on crates, barrels, waiting to move out and so on.

This set has two kneeling figures—an officer and section leader. The infantry has been painted as part of the 43rd wessex. You may notice a blue (square) with a yellow dab in the middle. The officer has been painted as an RAF link officer (cab control? can't recall what these guys were called) attached to armoured divisions whose job was to call in air strikes as needed. The head is a swap, the original figure wears a beret which RAF the RAF did not wear at this time.

Speaking of heads, one complaint is the sprue attaches to the crown of the helmet on some figures. If cut to short, the helmet will be sporting an odd cylinder rising from it while an over cut will lop off the top. It would have been better to have attachment at the bottom of the feet.

The riders are very nice with a lot of detail. With most British figures on the market, it seems the kit and webbing always suffers. In this case, the entrenching tool and canteen is nicely sculpted with it skeleton holder rather chunky (in a good way) to take paint easily.

I feel for the sculptor. Due to the poses, there is some excess plastic between the rifle butts and the hip, and in some cases, the canteen doesn't turn the corner and the space between the canteen and buttock fills in. These figures could probably benefit from separate packs like HäT's Napoleonic Prussians and some of the Zvezda sets.

On minor point, most of the men are sitting as if on chairs. This arrangement works better on the angular Cromwell than the slope found on Shermans. Gluing the figures on (or to each other) would be the best solution for stability but I prefer to freedom to position as will. Just don't bump the table.

Overall, nice figures, poses and detail. Another job well done!